The Mini-Summer

Has anyone else noticed how we have a mini-summer sometime about Easter?

The weather goes gorgeous for a week or so, then we’re back to rain and cloud and hoping we’ll get a proper, longer demonstration of summer later on. Well, judging by today our mini-summer looks to be over, but it was certainly nice while it lasted!

These to the left are a mix of bulbs and Polyanthus that were found struggling to survive, and were shoved into this patch of ground to give them a chance. It doesn’t look too bad though does it? And certainly brightens up the place a bit. Plus, when they’re finished they can be moved somewhere more suitable.

You can buy living salads in supermarkets, which I planted out into the summerhouse beds, and they’re bulking up quite nicely. Plus, sproutlings are coming up in the greenhouse – vegetables and flowers – and some seeds I planted at the beginning of March are now getting big enough to move on. So I can plant some more! Some of the peas I planted on a little bit ago have even started flowering.

The wild birds have been flying off with food, which means there are babies about, and the starlings and sparrows are loving the bucket filled with water. Funnily enough, the ‘average’ number of sparrows in this area is something like 4 1/2 (how you get a half-sparrow I don’t want to know) but thanks to the privet-hedge we get rather more than that! Sometimes there’s so many the ground looks to be moving! Then you add in blackbirds, starlings pigeons, robins, blue-tits, coal-tits, dunnocks, and recently a couple of raven/crow type-birds. T

Making the most of the sun, I’ve been working on the front garden, which currently means digging up the very well-established stubbornly tough grass, avoiding ants, nearly beheading slow-worms, and weeding where we’d started clearing the previous year. I had a bit of help though: